The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [208]
In Bruges you bought everything in the town. Here, contracts were made by which your oil and your wine, your geese and your capons, your leeks and your onions and pigeons were brought in from outlying farms, and there were always complaints of short-changing or rotten goods or lateness or failure of delivery. In such cases; or when some roof leaked, or the water was muddied or a slave fell sick and the doctor was away, what was she expected to do? They seemed to think she must have time to spare, since she didn’t cut her own cloth, or check the cellar or storehouse, or supervise the washing and sewing and certainly not the beastly business of cleaning the commodes. When the orange and pomegranate trees in sheltered places began to sag for want of watering, Pagano had said as if astonished that he had supposed she was attending to it, as the duty didn’t seem to be hard. It occurred to her, a little late, that Pagano had never in his life stayed very long in one place, and that if there were women about he assumed that such matters were being taken care of. He had been the most perfect and skilful lover that any girl of her age might have wanted, but his imagination, she saw, did not really stretch to practical things. She kept having to remind him.
He was still thinking about nothing but his health when the time came to go back to Trebizond, and she felt, sometimes, that he was not really listening when she talked of more important things. She thought a lot about what her mother would do without Nicholas, and whether Pagano would have to bother with Bruges, and what it would be like to give orders to Father Godscalc and Meester Tobie. She wanted to know Pagano’s plans. She was becoming uneasy, as well, at the long abstinence his injuries had imposed, which her body resented. She had made her disappointment quite clear on their last night at the monastery, and had got him at last to court her properly although he could not, of course, carry her into bed. Then, having roused her, he suddenly cried out and rolled aside, groaning, while she ached and throbbed unfulfilled at his side. That was when she struck out at him, without caring where the blow fell, and he shouted at her and left the bed and crept to a chair, where he sat hugging himself and swearing under his breath. Later, he asked her to forgive him, but she wouldn’t for a long time. On the journey back to the Leoncastello they hardly spoke, and once there the Genoese doctor put him to bed and gave him something that kept him sleeping all night. It was the first time, too, that she had ever heard Pagano snore. But Willequin gave her a wonderful welcome.
The next day she went out, and stayed out. After the monastery, it was delicious to take out a fresh gown and veil and braid her hair up with flowers and walk out with her attendants to see her acquaintances in the City. She told, several times, the story of how Pagano had fought off the Kurds single-handed. Once, she saw the big Guinea slave Loppe in the distance and when Willequin barked he turned his head and began quickly to push towards her. Luckily, she was near the house of an embroideress she wanted to visit, and slipped through the door before he got near. Nicholas had known how to get round most people, and she supposed they were sorry in one way that he had gone. But you couldn’t expect grown men to enjoy taking orders from her mother’s apprentice. It was better for her mother this way, however sad it made her at first. Felix would have been sad as well. When she had a thought like that, she dismissed it. The wife of one of the Ancona merchants asked her to take dinner with them, and she did. She had quite a satisfactory day.
As soon as she got back to the fondaco, she felt that something had